New Renderings of Apple's New Flagship San Francisco Store Reveal Massive 2-Story Sliding Glass Panels

[flottenheimer]

This is unbuildable and extremely misleading.
Look at the thickness of the upper level ceiling plane - there is no depth for roof structure, lighting, air conditioning, etc. It's a quite ridiculous rendering for the architects to have produced, particularly for public viewing!

Guess, you'll be pretty amazed, when the building is up, looking exactly like these renderings, then. : )

Foster+Partners anin't no joke — http://www.fosterandpartners.com/projects/

PS: @everyone: The underside of the ceiling, and the underside of the first floor is clearly angled. There is nothing 'embarrassing', 'ridiculous' or wrong with the perspective of the render. Everything is made/angled to look super thin — kind of like the design of the MacBook Air.

 

[robinp]

I generally quite like applestore designs. I'm a bit of a minimalist at heart. This, however I find a bit wilful, perhaps even arrogant. A corner site is always more valuable due to higher visibility. What they are proposing here is to essentially degrade the corner which from an urbanism perspective is fairly irresponsible in my opinion.

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Guess, you'll be pretty amazed, when the building is up, looking exactly like these renderings, then. : )

Foster+Partners anin't no joke — http://www.fosterandpartners.com/projects/

Is it definitely a foster proposal?

 

[robogobo]

This whole thread reads like a doom and gloom pundit review of a new Apple product which goes on to be record breaking successful and turns an industry upside down. I'd get a time out for saying what I really think of your collective taste, so let's just say you all seem to have a complete lack of imagination. This building is an architectural marvel. It can and will be built, despite the grumble of tasteless critics.

 

[LostSoul80]

Nice cuboid...

 

[iChrist]

Only silver or white cars are allowed to drive by.

 

[dlondon]

I think the big open doors are a mistake. I can imagine the store being really humid at times with bugs flying around (especially moths and mosquitoes at night). I also think the store looks like it's primed for a drive-in store robbery!

 

[jayducharme]

Although the text says that there's an 8-foot window along the side street, the rendering doesn't show it. Even if it were there, an 8 foot window is negligible compared with that huge expanse of grey. If I remember correctly, one of the biggest complaints was that massive impersonal wall. It looks like that hasn't changed.

 

[niallstarling]

I generally quite like applestore designs. I'm a bit of a minimalist at heart. This, however I find a bit wilful, perhaps even arrogant. A corner site is always more valuable due to higher visibility. What they are proposing here is to essentially degrade the corner which from an urbanism perspective is fairly irresponsible in my opinion.

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Is it definitely a foster proposal?

I read the original revised design was by Foster, but there is no way that rendering is by them

 

[mazz0]

If they can really pull off those huge sliding glass doors they'll look amazing. The rest of it though, especially, the plain bland wall on the other street, looks distinctly meh. Personally I don't really like any of Apple's custom built shops, the ones in classic old buildings are where it's as. But then I live 5,000 miles from San Fransisco, so I don't suppose it'll affect me a great deal.

 

[simonmet]

The sad part is, it's just a really butt-ugly building. Come on, Apple, you can do better, much better. Throw this in the trash and start over. If I were an architect designing something in a city, I would ask myself "How will this building look in 10 years? What about 25 or 50 years?". I don't think this design holds up. If your answer to that question is "It doesn't matter because it'll probably be torn down by then anyway", you are probably a crappy architect.

I tend to agree. This is just so cold and clinical and reminiscent of late 90s, early 00s design. Apple's products always feature at least subtle curves to make the products more friendly and human, and a building should be no different. Subtle curves give the impression of a more hand-crafted quality.

Hard angles can work in certain situations depending on an architect's intention or the building's purpose but I don't think it's the impression Apple should be going for.

This honestly looks like an amateur job a few interns did in a couple of days or a week.

 

[Takeo]

I smell Lawsuit the first time someone accidentally stumbles into the glass panels and it comes crashing down on him/her in a billion little pieces of glass.

Because a professional engineer would never think to design the doors strong enough to resist the force of a 175 pound person walking into it

My thoughts are simply... birds, bugs, wind, rain...etc. Or maybe they don't have those in San Francisco?

 

[SuperCachetes]

It's a quite ridiculous rendering for the architects to have produced, particularly for public viewing!

Yes, because the public is **** at understanding what they are looking at.

No, seriously - sometimes the purpose of showcase architecture is to amaze and make people scratch their heads and say "How in the heck did they do that?" That a layperson finds it incredulous is on one hand quite meaningless, but in the other hand, sortof the point.

Incidentally, the tapering, "knife-edge" theme that is undoubtedly present at the second floor and roof is a current trend among many architects, and by design it has a little sleight of hand built in.

No way in heck that glass is a single piece at 44' x 23' on a sliding panel.

The code required wind loads would prevent it.

Who is the Architect? Was it BCJ? I doubt it was Foster.

It will never be built like this.

I didn't read that it was a single piece of glass... There will obviously be joints in the glass, and it will be a relatively thick, complex wall system - but as long as the system can transfer its loads into the floor track and roof structure, there's nothing impossible about this at all. Magical and expensive, yes - but not impossible.

Guess, you'll be pretty amazed, when the building is up, looking exactly like these renderings, then. : )

Foster+Partners anin't no joke — http://www.fosterandpartners.com/projects/

PS: @everyone: The underside of the ceiling, and the underside of the first floor is clearly angled. There is nothing 'embarrassing', 'ridiculous' or wrong with the perspective of the render. Everything is made/angled to look super thin — kind of like the design of the MacBook Air.

Thank you. IMHO it wouldn't even take a Norman Foster to pull this off.

 

[The123king]

Ew.

"I Know! Let's build a massive grey box! a-a-and then we cover the front in a massive pane of glass! Then we put in loads of tapering ceilings to confuse everybody! It'll look beautiful!"

No, just no. Seriously. I might not live in a big city, and indeed I might not be american, but i seriously feel sorry for you lot in San Fran if that's going to be your flagship Apple Store. It's ********* awful. Especially when here in Blighty we have the Covent Garden and Regent Street stores, which are a beautiful combination of old and new. And even in New Yoik you have the 5th Ave cube, which is gorgeous. But seriously, a grey box?!?! For a flagship store? The architect should be shot.

 

[angemon89]

They keep forgetting to put the corner hot dog stand in their design images.

 

[hexor]

With the number of smash and grab robberies at Apple stores I'd opt for at least some protection in the front of that glass wall.

 

[Daalseth]

I smell Lawsuit the first time someone accidentally stumbles into the glass panels and it comes crashing down on him/her in a billion little pieces of glass.

Nope, not a problem. There was a a story a couple weeks ago about the New York store. A snow blower kicked up a rock and smashed into one of the giant panels. It broke into a billion tiny peaces but it's safety glass so not one fell out of place. No crashing down. Not even any appreciable air leak. I'm not sure if they've replaced it yet. They may be waiting for warm weather to set up the scaffolding and such.

 

[Cheffy Dave]

Awesome, the "Pigeon " problem can be solved by ultrasonic sound, which
Humans can't hear, AC is doable as well, The HEAVY doors, motorized of course
ANYTHING is possible if you have the money, and this IS Apple after all

 

[Akuratyde]

Wait, so when the big glass partitions are open, you're basically going to have a huge non-climate controlled space with pigeons flying around?

I came here to post this exact comment. What's going to happen when birds begin flying around in there?

 

[Pman17]

I wouldn't wanna be standing around those windows where there is an earthquake.

 

[ucantgetridofme]

OMG it's just a store! You people are way too emotionally involved with a corporation if you're losing sleep over this. What is wrong with you people? The same people are probably going to watch the Superbowl just for the Apple commercials.

 

[Jax44]

I came here to post this exact comment. What's going to happen when birds begin flying around in there?

They don't have to open the doors all the way, all the time. On really nice days, maybe. Otherwise, just open them about 8 feet wide or so.

They will use Amazon Drones to chase the birds out.

 

[RoastingPig]

They keep forgetting to put the corner hot dog stand in their design images.

and about 3 bums

 

[Trius]

I smell Lawsuit the first time someone accidentally stumbles into the glass panels and it comes crashing down on him/her in a billion little pieces of glass.

Doesn't anyone remember those flowery decals you'd put on your sliding glass doors at home, so you wouldn't accidentally run through them and cut yourself to death? (Ack, I'm showing my age, I guess.)

I would hope the glass is strong enough to withstand the weight of a stumbling human..

 

[fredfnord]

For once, I secretly wish that Apple would just throw in the towel and abandon plans for this disastrous San Francisco store, and instead relocate its "flagship" store to somewhere else.

Uh huh. You 'secretly' wish, do you?

If you think that going through an actual architectural review, and having people complain that you are going to tear out and get rid of a significant piece of public art, is 'disastrous', then you should never try to have anything built anywhere that has actual zoning laws. (Although, given your obvious lack of experience with any such thing, that's probably not a particularly demanding request.)

Apple, stop your patronage of and bringing revenue and commerce into an uptight socialist city that is determined to screw you at every opportunity.

Goodness. You poor boy. Show us on the architectural diagram where San Francisco touched you.

Apple has values, and they much more closely align with San Francisco's than they do with yours, it appears. Either suck it up, or find another computer company and become one of the self-righteous Apple-haters.

 

[Aluminum213]

I remember Steve Jobs saying something about Cupertino not having enough foot-traffic to warrant a retail store. It's quite unfortunate because I'm from Cupertino and I would love to see an Apple Store in our city.

Wow, apple has a dump of a store in a crammed spot in a low class mall in Ann Arbor, MI but doesn't have any store in their own town?

Lol